Utena Drabbles
by Ember A. Keelty
Summary: A collection of my drabbles from the community utenadrabble on livejournal.
1. 10 Years Later Challenge

Castle in the Sky isn't much of a castle. It looks more like a witch's cottage, really. It's not sculpted of pristine marble, but cobbled together from earthen bricks. There are no turrets or spires, only haphazard gables and a dusty attic. The well-tended backyard garden bears up no star-shaped lilies or powder-puff dahlias or exotically curved orchids, no flowers at all except for one bush of perfect white roses. The rest is herbs and vegetables; squashes and tomatoes are the brightest swatches of color to be found.

Still, there's a latent magic to it, something about it that positively shines. Even those who have seen it can't quite put their finger on what, though. Its two permanent residents, the women who maintain it, might know, but they aren't telling.

Castle in the Sky wasn't always what it is now. Once it was simply a home to two women, Miss Himemiya and Miss Tenjou. Then Miss Himemiya started bringing in broken things: rabbits with broken legs, birds with broken wings, fox kits with broken families. She fixed them up as best she could, and when they were whole enough they returned to the surrounding woods. Miss Tenjou watched her in bemused adoration and made no objections.

Then one day a different sort of animal with a different sort of hurt showed up on their doorstep: a canary-haired girl with a broken heart, a songbird with clipped wings. "I know we were never close," she said to Miss Himemiya. "But I have no one else to turn to, and I had to get away. Akio's been acting so strangely, I just can't take it anymore. He… he's started to call me his Rose Bride."

It was Miss Tenjou who told her she could stay; Miss Himemiya smiled cordially and made no objections. They cared for Kanae Ohtori as best they could, and when she was whole enough she returned to the surrounding world.

Others came to take her place, women, girls and sometimes young boys, all broken by fathers, boyfriends, husbands, all drawn to the shining beacon of Castle in the Sky. They never ask much and they seldom stay long. Like the wild animals Miss Himemiya still brings into the house, all they need is a safe place to heal.

And sometimes the younger ones gather in the parlor by the fire — where Miss Himemiya sits with her head on Miss Tenjou's shoulder, bottle-feeding a baby raccoon in her lap, and Miss Tenjou plays with her wild-violet hair and sips from a mug of rosehip tea — to listen as the women weave the strangest fairy tale any of them has ever heard.


	2. Tori Amos Lyrics Challenge

"EXTRA! EXTRA! EXTRA!"

"Mohammed, my friend, it's time to tell the world! We both know it was a girl back in Bethlehem."

"Was it really? That was an awfully long time ago."

"Don't you remember? On that fateful day when she was crucified she wore Shiseido red, and we drank tea by her side."

"That does sound familiar. I must have forgotten."

"It had to be a girl, you know. It's always a girl, when things go wrong. And things were going very, very wrong."

"But afterwards they started going right. It's always a boy, when things go right."

"Ah, but only a girl could die for all of the sins in the world."

"That's true. Boys seldom manage to die for even one or two."

"ASHRE! ASHRE! ASHRE! If I lose my crackerjacks at the tidal wave, I got a place in the pope's rubber robe."

"Mohammed, my friend, I'm getting very scared."


	3. Duel Name Challenge

Self

**Jealousy**

Juri was beautiful. Juri was strong. Juri was mature and stoic and brilliant and noble. Juri, Ruka thought, might just have been the single most amazing young woman the universe had ever produced.

Shiori was pretty, he supposed, in her way. But Shiori was weak. Shiori was childish and histrionic and dull and petty. Ruka had fucked half-a-dozen Shioris in his time, and they were nothing special. He told Juri that frequently, but she never believed him.

Whether she believed him or not, he was right. And Juri was intelligent, so she would figure it out one day. That was why Ruka never doubted for a moment that he would win her in the end.

All he had to do was wait. He had all the time in the world.

**Limitation**

He would never grow old with Juri.

That was the first thing he thought when they told him. That was the reason he cried, just a little. He wasn't ashamed of it, either. A dying man has the right to cry, just a little.

He would never grow old with Juri. Of course, he knew now that he never could have anyway. He was almost as undeserving of her as Shiori. And deserving aside, Juri, for some intangible, indecipherable reason, loved Shiori and not him. Not all love, he had learned, was like his love for Her. Not all love, he had learned, was in any way deserved.

**Conviction**

Juri deserved Shiori.

It was a sudden realization, and it resolved almost instantly into certainty. Juri, the most amazing young woman the universe had ever produced, deserved to have the person she loved. What he or Shiori deserved didn't enter into it.

Juri deserved Shiori. Juri deserved the Earth and the Sun. There wasn't a star in the sky that wouldn't be honored to serve as a jewel on Her hand. Juri deserved the power to make any dream she could ever desire to come true. There was a way he could win her that power, he knew.

It was too late to make things right with her for himself. It was too late in his life to learn kindness or gentleness or the humility to seek forgiveness. But it was not too late to make things right for her, not if he could accomplish it by the same means with which he was accustomed to accomplishing his goals.

Juri Arisugawa, he decided, would have everything she deserved.

**Self**

The last selfish thing he ever did was kiss her.

He knew it was selfish because of the way she struggled. He knew it was selfish because of the way he felt when she eventually stropped struggling. He knew it was selfish because of the way she glared jade daggers at him as she escaped. He didn't care. He was quickly running out of breaths, and he felt (almost) justified in stealing some from the person to whom he had sworn his very last.

When he saw the hatred in her eyes afterwards, he felt only relief that she was too strong for him to break. That was how he knew that his final moment of selfishness was over.

**Revolution**

It hurt to die. All true endings hurt. A happy ending is a story cut short.

But some stories end so that others can begin.

Juri, who was not, after all, the most amazing young woman the universe had ever produced, forgot about Ruka, like she forgot about the boy who was drowned rescuing her sister and the girl who was crucified rescuing the Rose Bride. Shiori, who was not mature or stoic or brilliant or noble, had to remind her.

"Oh," said Juri. "Him."

"Yes," said Shiori. "Him. And it's perfectly horrid of you not to remember. He was in love with you, you know."

"I don't know," Juri replied coldly. "He spent so much of his time pursuing—" she recalled Shiori's history with Ruka "—other goals."

"Well of course, silly. He knew what you thought of him, and he knew you'd reject him if he came on too strong. So I guess he was waiting for you to figure it out on your own. We were all younger then. We had all the time in the world."

"But he was dying," Juri objected.

"So were we!" Shiori responded with malevolent cheerfulness. "And so we are! All cynics know that. I thought you were a cynic, Juri."

Juri was a cynic. Otherwise, she would have believed that the sound the wind made as it whistled past her ear was really a boy's voice saying, _I grant you the power to bring the world revolution_.

"You're right," she said. "I think I'm about to die this very minute."

"You better not," said Shiori. "Lunch is on you today, remember?"

And Juri leaned over and whispered in her ear.


	4. Revolutionaries Anonymous

_Author's Note: This piece was written before _Speak Now_ and does not take place in the same continuum, though I did borrow Rosehips and the idea of Saionji as an author for that longer story._

**Scientific**

Everything — his hand, the board, the crumbling Paleozoic material between them — is music. That's the answer.

What would the strings sound like if he could hear them? Not the gently lilting melodies he still sometimes plays on his piano. Those are pretty enough, in their way, but they're far too sweet, too quaint, too _limited_ to describe the whole universe. They're too comforting and familiar. The universe, he knows, is terrifying and strange.

No, string music must be dark and elegant. Choral music, perhaps, in the voices of a hundred ghosts. But not with lyrics. At least, not with any _sensible_ lyrics. They would be random, erratic. _Disjointed._ They would not follow one after another in a logical semantic pattern. And yet, when viewed not word-by-word but as a single coherent whole, they would evoke—

He has it.

The chalk scratches out an old and haunting rhythm as he writes. When he's finished, it falls from his quivering dust-stained hands and clatters on the floor.

**Social**

"Arisugawa-sama, I—"

"Shinohara, please," she cuts in, "I'm not your boss anymore. There's no need for such formalities."

The now-former model flashes a winsome smile. "Juri."

Oh, well. She didn't mean to invite her to be _that_ familiar.

"I just wanted to say before I go," the younger woman continues, "that working for Real Beauty Studios changed my life. I would never have had the confidence to try out for this part if it weren't for you. I used to think that I wasn't…" And suddenly, she's crying. "And… and I used to think that people like you… I'm sorry. This is ridiculous."

And there it is. Juri never thought to hope that she would have such a tangible vindication of her dream for the studio. She goes to Shinohara and embraces her only a bit awkwardly. "There's nothing uglier than a beautiful lie," she says. "You and I, Shinohara, we're going to keep smashing up those lies. It will be long, bitter work, but you'll make it. Never stop to wish. That's my last advice to you. Wishes are just another form of lies."

"Thank you, Juri." Shinohara sniffles once more and dries her eyes. "Um. How are things between you and Takatsuki-san?"

Why does she have to bring that up now? "The 'things' you refer to have been over for a while. We tried. It didn't work. We agreed to give each other space for now, but we hope eventually to be friends."

"Oh! I'm so sorry!"

"Don't be. _I_ have no regrets." She still isn't sure whether she means it, but the more often she says it the truer it feels.

"Um. Juri." Is Shinohara blushing? "There's that new tea house everyone's talking about. Rosehips. I've been wanting to check it out, but it's so lonely drinking tea on your own. So… would you go with me, sometime?"

Juri, who is not unaware of Rosehips's reputation, feels the blood rush to the back of her neck. "You're hardly subtle, Shinohara."

"Oh, that's nothing," says Shinohara. "You should have seen me in middle school."

**Artistic**

_Avant-garde_ is the word for Saionji Kyouichi. He's hot! He's cool! He's… not all that famous, actually. But what his followers lack in numbers they make up for in zeal. _Especially_ the females. He doesn't mind as much as he might, either, since they're generally the sort of girls who can think.

This one smells like milk and coffee, and she has a pretty figure and a prettier face. He still might have passed her by, but she's also quieter and more earnest than the others, and she doesn't ask all the same questions about the roses and the swords, so he takes a chance and takes her out to lunch.

"I have to admit," she says shyly, "you're different from how I expected. After reading all your work, I thought you'd be a little more… well…"

"Pissed off at the world?" he suggests.

She laughs. "I was going to say 'intense.'"

"Yes, I've heard that one too. The truth is, I often am. I've just learned to switch it on and off. Talking to a beautiful woman — that's not the time to be angry." The girl blushes and quickly changes the topic.

**Political**

Another day, another media reception, another brush with ruined reputation.

"Oniisama, you are hopeless," she says as she whops him over the head with a copy of the script she so carefully and considerately edited for him.

"What have I done now?" He rubs his temple and pouts, pretending to be hurt. Big baby.

"You know very well what you've done! You can't go saying things like that, about smashing the world open. It scares people."

"Should I say something other than what I mean?"

"You tell me. You're the one who wanted to be a politician."

He turns his pouting up another couple degrees, and she matches him with her glowering. Then they can't stand it anymore, and they simultaneously burst into exhausted laughter.

"All right," she says at length. "Enough of that. I have to go get in touch with my contacts to have them 'clarify' your statements before they hit the press. And by 'clarify,' I mean cake them with mud like a pig in the summer."

"What would I do without you, Nanami?" he asks.

"Oh," she replies airily, "the same things you do now, I'm sure."

"Naturally. But I'd only be half as effective at them."

They grin at each other, but the warmth only lasts a moment. She has work to finish. After all, there's a husband and daughter expecting her home by the end of the day.

**Personal**

It's one of those small-world moments.

"No way," Wakaba says the moment she walks in the door.

Juri squints. "That can't possibly be…"

"Saionji!"

"Miki!"

The only two men in the shop turn to look. "Juri!" they exclaim with one voice.

The four of them quickly gather round one table. Wakaba introduces herself to Miki and tactfully reminds Saionji that they've already met. To her surprise, he remembers her after only a bit of prompting. "Looks like I missed my chance," he jokes, and, even more to her surprise, it doesn't sting like it once would have.

"Well, we all know why _I'm_ here," Juri says. "What about you two?"

"I had a reading that ended about an hour ago. Miki was passing by and decided to see why there was such a crowd."

"Interesting choice of venue."

"I take it you've never read his books," Wakaba tells her date.

Miki, who has been silent for a while, suddenly speaks. "That woman in the corner," he says. "The one with the paper."

Wakaba looks. "I don't see anything special about her."

"I meant to look at the paper."

She does. So do the others. "Is that..?"

"The Kiryus."

"On the front page!"

"It's official, then," says Miki. "The whole Ohtori Student Council is in this tea house, in one form or another."

They talk at length about what they've done since graduation, and none of them are surprised when a pattern starts to emerge. Inevitably, it leads them back to the day they all woke up to the realization that while they slept the world had changed in some fundamental but undefinable way.

"I wonder where she is now," Wakaba muses. No one needs to ask who "she," is, which is fortunate, because Wakaba would be hard-pressed to come up with a name or adequate description.

"Wherever she is," Saionji says, "I'm sure she's making bigger waves than all of us combined."

"If she were," says Miki, "wouldn't we have heard about it?"

"How would we know if we had?" Juri points out. "We don't remember anything about her, except what she did to us."

"I'm sure I would know her if I saw her," Wakaba says. "I was her best friend, once upon a time."

"Perhaps," Juri says, "she's settled down now. Perhaps she's had enough of revolution for one lifetime."

"Enough revolution?" asks Saionji. "Impossible!"

"I have to admit," says Miki, "that personally, I don't think I could ever have my fill."

"I don't either," Juri confesses. "But you have to remember, we were on the outer edges that first time. Perhaps all we're really after is to feel what it was like in the center."

Wakaba feels a bit lost at this point, so she's glad when one of the women who run the shop — not the Indian lady, but the other, taller one with the gorgeous pink hair — brings her her tea. It doesn't occur to her until later that day that she never placed an order, and yet it came fixed exactly the way she likes it.


	5. Parenthood Challenge

"…and they lived happily ever after."

She had found it in a box of assorted items sent to her by Aunt Yuriko. "This was my favorite," she'd murmured, blowing the dust from the cover and tentatively flipping through the pages. "I'd almost forgotten about it. My mother used to read it to me, so I couldn't stand to look at it after the accident."

"You should share it with Ri-chan," Anthy had told her, smiling up from her needlework.

"Do you really think so?" she'd asked uneasily. "I mean, I liked it when I was a kid, but now that I'm older…"

"Ri-chan is a child still."

"But it's all lies. Is it really right to read our daughter lies?"

"Utena, childhood isn't something that can be skipped over. What good would it do to teach her the world isn't the way people say it is if she's never heard what people say?"

"But it will hurt her, when she finds out the truth."

"That isn't a pain you can protect her from. And when it does come, we'll be there to guide her through it. That's more of an advantage than we ever had."

She'd been right, of course, as Anthy almost always was. The dreamy smile on Ri-chan's face and the shine in her eyes were not things Utena could bring herself to regret.

"Still," the little girl said, "it's sad that the princess lost her mother, back in the beginning."

"Yes," Utena agreed. "It's very sad. But she has a new family now, and life goes on."

"Well, Mommy and Mother aren't allowed to die," she stated imperiously. "Not even when I get married."

"Don't worry, we plan to stick around for a good long while." She made a show of flexing her arm. "That's why this old man spends so much time working out."

"No!" Ri-chan pouted. "You aren't allowed to die _ever_!"

"Ri-chan, it's going to happen someday."

"Why?!"

This, Utena realized, was a problem. Since Ri-chan had come along, she had spent a lot of time preparing for all sorts of questions. "Where do babies come from?" "Why do I have two moms instead of a mom and a dad?" "What happened to my first mom?" "Why are you two so much older than the other girls' parents?" "How did you and Mother meet?" Somehow, despite the trauma of her own childhood, this one had slipped her mind entirely. Was this a common thing? Were many parents so anxious about the prospect of explaining sex that they never thought to worry about having to explain death?

"Ri-chan," she said, carefully, slowly, "everyone dies eventually. _Everyone._"

"That's a lie!" The little girl kicked against the air and pounded her fists on the bed.

"Stop that! Mommy never lies to you, remember?"

"Am I going to die?"

"Not for a very long time. Not until you've gotten everything out of life that you possibly can."

"Are the prince and princess in the book going to die? Even though it says they live happily forever?"

"The prince and princess are characters in a story." Anthy had slipped into the room without either of them noticing. "As long as people keep telling that story, they can never die."

"Then I want to be a character in a story too!"

"Do you?" Anthy asked calmly. "Think about it, Ri-chan. The book ends just when the prince and princess have conquered all their problems and are about to begin their life together. Their 'happily ever after' lasts for one sentence. Then the next time someone begins the story, they have to suffer through their trials all over again. I don't think that's a very good way to live. Do you?"

Utena stared at Anthy in amazement. The years the older woman never talked about, all those years in Ohtori before she had come onto the scene… Perhaps this was the secret behind them?

Ri-chan pulled her covers over her as though suddenly chilled. "No," she admitted. "I guess not. And that's why everyone has to die?"

"I don't think there's really a reason," Anthy said. "But it's how things are, and it's better than some of the alternatives."

"Okay," said the little girl, and closed her eyes to go to sleep. "I guess that makes sense. Good night, Mommy. Good night, Mother. I love you."

_She's over it already?!_ Utena thought incredulously. But then, she hadn't ever truly been under it, had she? Hadn't felt its full, crushing weight. Someday she would, and when that day came Utena, if she was still around, would hold her hand and resist the urge to try to pull her forcibly from the abyss. Climbing out on her own would make her stronger — and anyhow, _that_ never worked.

"Sweet dreams, Ri-chan."


End file.
